"A few minor purchases - purchases that I know instinctively will either be useless or land me in trouble.  A Zip travelling bag, for instance.  Life nowadays is dominated and complicated by the remorseless Zip...Why?  Is there anything more deadly than a Zip that turns nasty on you?"

"In the early days of Zips, my mother, thrilled by this delicious novelty, had a pair of corsets fashioned for her which zipped up the front.  The results were unfortunately in the extreme!  Not only was the original zipping-up fraught with extreme agony, but the corsets then obstinately refused to de-zip!"